I watched the batty old food vendor slide each coin slowly across the wooden countertop that, judging by how heavily it was stained, marred with countless slashes, and covered in a thin film of the juice of untold war pigs, had clearly been used as a cutting board by generations of food vendors.
I started nibbling the meat off the skewer while she counted. Maybe I was just really hungry, or maybe the food here was better than back home, or maybe they messed up creating the taste buds of these special Player bodies, but man, whatever this war pig was I had never tasted anything that good in all my twenty-six years on Earth, plus my hour and a bit on whatever planet this was.
“...four...five.”
She pushed the copper aside and started counting out silver.
“One...two...four...five...”
“I think you skipped—”
She glared up at me with that one cloudy eye. “Don’t make me lose count.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“FIVE...six..seven.”
She pushed the silver together with the copper she’d counted and pushed them toward me. The coins, lubricated by a slimy coating of ham juice, slid easily along the cutting board’s surface.
“There. Change.”
I didn’t bring much away from the recent end of the relationship with my ex-girlfriend besides self-loathing and crushing debt, but I did learn not to let someone take advantage of me anymore. I especially was not about to let some wackily programmed NPC rip me off.
I held up the half-eaten skewer. “I thought this was only five copper.”
“Aye.”
“Which is half a silver.”
“Aye.”
“You said one gold is worth ten silver.”
“Aye.”
“So that’s not enough change. It only makes six and a half silver.”
“Seven and a half, and your point is?”
“It’s not enough change.”
She glowered at me with that eye again. “Well, it’s all I got.”
“It’s not enough.”
She shrugged. “Then you should’ve paid me with somethin smaller.”
“But I only have gold.”
“And I only got seven silvers and five coppers.”
“Six silver,” I corrected.
“Seven,” she insisted.
I counted slowly to three again in my head. “What is on this table is not enough change.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
We stared each other in the eyes for a few long moments, ham juice oozing down the skewer onto my hand as I silently sought a way out of this impasse. I desperately wanted to take another bite of the delicious meat, but under the circumstances I didn’t dare.
“I tell you what,” the old woman said. “How bout I make up the difference?”
“Look, this war pig is surprisingly good, but I don’t think I can eat four more skewers.”
“Don’t have to be meat. Maybe there’s somethin else here you might want.”
“Like what?”
“You tell me,” she said.
I peered around her food cart but couldn’t see anything I could possibly want. It made me feel bad, seeing what was likely most of her worldly possessions laid bare before me and finding nothing of value among them. Sure, I knew she wasn’t a real person, that this was all part of the game, but I still felt sorry for her.
Hmmm. All part of the game. On a whim, I started evaluating.
Old Food Cart
A decrepit cart in constant danger of self-combusting that has nonetheless been finely tuned to produce inordinately good food. The war pig skewer comes highly recommended.
Tub of War Pig Meat Marinating in Old Ham Juice
Don’t look in here. Just…don’t.
Old Chipped Knife
The permanent ham juice stains coating its handle are a testament to the many thousands of war pigs this ancient blade has processed.
Yeah, nope. I was right, it was all crap. That knife could be a weapon, but a pretty crappy one.
Then I looked at the stuff she’d pulled from her pocket.
Broken Necklace
A worthless bauble whose value has been made even lower by being broken.
Tarnished Ring
The thick tarnish covering this simple metal band makes it impossible to tell exactly what it is made of.
Powers: A Little Bit Faster - Very small increase in movement speed
Stop the presses, what was this? The ring had a power. It seemed weak, but at that point any increase is nothing to sneeze at. All part of the game. Did she even know the ring was special? I needed to play this cool.
“How about that ring?” I said in my most nonchalant way.
She looked at the ring. It wasn’t much to look at, but she studied it for a bit, then gave me a one-eyed glare. Then her face contorted into the reasonable facsimile of a smile, albeit a crooked one.
“What, you want this ring here, does you?” she crooned.
I suppose I was not quite as nonchalant as I had perhaps thought. Ah well, in for a copper.
“Yeah, give me the coins you’ve got and throw in that dirty old ring and we’ll call it even.”
“Hang on there,” she said, picking up the ring with her claws before dropping it in her palm and stroking it gently with a twisted finger. “You think this here’s only worth two and a half silver?”
“It’s actually three and a half more silver you owe me, but sure. Toss the ring in too and we’re square.”
“How about the ring instead of the coins then, huh?”
Seriously? My meat was getting cold.
“The ring plus six silver,” I said.
“Ring plus five copper.”
“Ring plus five silver.”
“Ring plus four silver.”
I sighed heavily, even though I had no problem trading five and a half silver for a magic ring, even one that was only slightly magical. I just didn’t want her to know that. “Fiiiine.”
She gave me a gap-toothed grin and began counting silver. “One...two...”
She somehow ended up counting three twice and handing me five silver instead of four, along with the ring. The coins shone with viscous ham slime.
“Thank you, come again,” she said.
Knowing my hand would get gucked with ham juice when I took the coins, I held the skewer between my teeth and used my already juiced-up hand to take the silver. I dumped it into my little money pouch, collected the ring, nodded once to the aptly named Crazy Sadie the Food Card Lady, then made my way down the street. As I worked on devouring the rest of the meat, I examined my new ring. Slick as it was with ham juice, it slid easily onto my finger.
I didn’t feel any faster. Oh well.
I hadn’t made it very far from Sadie’s cart when I heard someone approach me from behind.
“How is it?” asked a soft feminine voice.